


FEED

by hannah_robertson



Category: Avenged Sevenfold
Genre: F/M, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-24 00:23:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2561195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannah_robertson/pseuds/hannah_robertson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life for Hannah and Jamie MacDonald has never been easy.</p><p>What happens when the end of the world comes and their whole lives change forever?<br/>Will they survive?<br/>Will they change?<br/>Will they die?<br/>The list of threats is endless and it isn't always the dead that they have to worry about.</p><p>When Avenged Sevenfold are thrown into the hands of a young, twenty-five year old girl when the apocalypse breaks out, what will they do to survive? As a band of brothers they would do anything to protect one another and they always have each other's backs.</p><p>They're not living the dream anymore, no, their lives are now that nightmares are truly made of.</p><p>Erin Campbell always had a good life, a happy life, and she wouldn't have changed anything for the world.</p><p>A great job, a best friend and the possibility of the life she always wanted with the man she loves will all be torn away from her and she will be forced to do things she never would have imagined.</p><p>Can she handle it?</p><p>"Beware the dead, fear the living."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**_Third Person_ **

Jamie is a typical fifteen year old boy. He plays video games, he likes girls, he reads comic books and watches movies, but there’s one thing that makes him different from his friends and the other kids at school. Jamie doesn’t like with his parents, or even one parent, no, Jamie lives with his older sister, Hannah, and he has done since he was just seven years old.

Jamie has always loved Halloween, and when he was younger Hannah would make his costume for him – whatever he wanted – and she would dress herself up to some extent and take him around their neighbourhood so that he could do some ‘Trick or Treating’ with the other kids, and it’s because of his sister that he loves Halloween because no matter how tough their lives got and no matter what was happening to them, Halloween was the one constant in their lives and it never ever changed. Jamie would look forward to October 31st all year ‘round because it was the one thing that they always managed to celebrate. Birthdays and Christmas were unreliable, but Halloween came every year in the MacDonald household.

Now that he was older, Jamie’s way of celebrating Halloween has changed quite drastically from when he was a little boy. He doesn’t dress up and he doesn’t ‘Trick or Treat’, but he does spend the night watching scary movies on TV. Normally, Hannah joins him and they order takeout and make popcorn, but tonight she has to work her shift at the hospital and leave Jamie to celebrate all on his own.

Hannah walked into the living room from the kitchen and found her little brother lounging on the couch, a bowl of popcorn balancing on his stomach while his eyes are fixed to the TV screen as he watches the first of many horror movies.

“Hmpf,”

Jamie looked over his shoulder when the noise that left Hannah’s mouth reached his ears and he saw her standing under the archway between the kitchen and the living room. She was dressed in her scrubs, with a long sleeved, grey t-shirt underneath and wore her hair in a ponytail that was swaying slightly from side to side as she shook her head at him with a smile on her face.

“What?” He asked, turning back to the TV.

“You look so much like Dad,” She told him happily.

“Oh yeah?” He asked, a smile tugging at his lips slightly “I’ve never heard you say that one before,”

“Yeah,” She chuckled “I found a picture of him when I was a kid, it was from back before he married mom and they had just moved in together, he was sitting exactly how you are, popcorn bowl on his stomach and everything,”

Jamie couldn’t remember what their father looked like, he’d only seen some pictures of the man who helped make him and raise him for the first three years of his life, but he never really noticed the resemblance between them.

“It’s only been recently,” She added, walking over to him and kneeling beside the couch “I swear, it’s like the morning of your fifteenth birthday, you got out of bed and you just looked a little bit more like him than you already did,”

“I wouldn’t know,” He shrugged “Never really knew the guy,”

“Doesn’t matter,” She sighed, pushing herself back onto her feet and messing up his hair as she walked by him, ignoring his hand smacking hers away “You sure you’re going to be alright tonight?”

“I’ll be fine,” He told her “Now go, you’re going to be late for work,” He insisted with a laugh.

“I’m going,” She laughed back at him, walking out into the hallway and towards the front door. She grabbed her bag off of the floor, made sure she had everything that she needed and slung it over her shoulder, stepped into her white Vans that she wore to work normally and grabbed her keys off of the hook by the door “Call Erin if anything happens, alright?!” She called over her shoulder as she pulled the front door open.

“Alright!” Jamie called back, shaking his head with a smile.

“Have fun!”

“You too!”

~~~~

**_  
_**

****

**_Jimmy_ **

I was never a fan of hospitals.

I always feel like the doctors and nurses are silently judging me and the guys for the way we look and what we do, I’ve never been able to feel comfortable in these places, so I wasn’t exactly happy when Brian made us stop in Travis County on our way through so that he could drag my ass into the emergency room so someone could check out my head.

I’d banged myself up pretty good last night after our last show.

“How much longer are we going to have to wait?” Brian grumbled from next to me as he flipped through the pages of the forms I’d just filled out.

“You’re the one who dragged me here,” I reminded him “You don’t get to complain about the wait, I was perfectly happy on the bus,”

“Excuse me for caring about my best friend’s health and wellbeing,” He scoffed “Matt would kill you if you collapsed on stage or something,”

“Well he isn’t exactly too pleased about you forcing us to make an unnecessary stop here, either.”

I heard someone calling my surname and the two of us looked over to the front of the emergency room to where there was a pretty, young woman looking over everyone in the room with an expectant look on her face, but her eyes settled on us when we stood up.

“This way, Mister Sullivan!” She called out to me, waving us both over to her.

When we reached her, she took the clipboard and pen from Brian and thanked him and told us to follow her through to an examination room so that she could have a look at the back of my head.

She lead us through a door at the side of the emergency room and down a short corridor, all the while she was making polite conversation with me – asking what happened and if I could rate my pain on a scale of one to ten what would it be – and she was looking through the forms the receptionist had given me to fill out while we waited. Eventually, she reached a semi-private examination room, switched the sign on the door to ‘occupied’ and lead Brian and I inside and offered Brian a chair to sit on and asked me to sit up on the bed and make myself comfortable.

“My name’s Hannah,” She smiled at me from where she was sitting herself down at a little desk with a computer and a phone “You’ll be dealing with me until you get out of here,” She told me.

“Good,” I smiled at her “It’s always nice to see a happy face in a hospital,”

“Yeah,” Brian scoffed with a laugh and a smile “Jimmy here hates hospitals, the nurses normally scare him,”

“Really?” Hannah asked, raising her eyebrows “I would never have taken you as the kind of guy to be scared of nurses,”

“Don’t quite know how to take that,” I admitted with a loud laugh that made me cringe a little as pain radiated from the back of my head.

“It’s good,” She told me, a smile still plastered on her face, and I could tell that it was a genuine smile and that put me at ease a little.

~~~~

While she examined me, Hannah kept up conversation and touched the painful area around the back of my head as lightly as she could. It was obvious that she was trying to keep me calm and it was working, so I wasn’t complaining.

“What brings you guys into town here, anyway?” She asked, glancing over her shoulder at Brian.

“We had a show a few towns over,” He answered “After the show though, numb-nuts over here fell and banged his head and he hasn’t been right for a couple of days so I made our driver stop on the way through here so that I could bring him here,”

Hannah was silent for a few moments continuing to poke and prod at my head before quickly moving away and walking back across the room while removing her gloves.

“It’s a good thing you brought him in,” She told Brian before she looked back at me, still with that amazing smile on her face “Luckily for you, your bleeding stopped all on its own but that doesn’t mean the nasty gash in the back of your head is going to heal on its own,” She gave me a sympathetic look “You’re going to need stitches,”

My whole body went rigid and she must have noticed, because she immediately started explaining that she would numb the area and I wouldn’t feel a thing and then I would get some really awesome painkillers to help with any pain I might still be feeling.

“You also have a concussion,” She added “I’m going to have to keep you here over night so that we can keep an eye on you, you won’t be allowed to sleep and we’ll be forcing food and water down your throat so that we don’t have to hook you up to an IV, alright?”

I nodded slowly and she left the room, promising to be right back to stitch the back of my head up.

“I’d better call the guys,” Brian groaned, pushing himself out of the little plastic chair he had been occupying for the last twenty minutes “I’ll let them know what’s happening and I’ll be right back,”

“Take your time,” I told him as he walked across the room to the door “I don’t want you in here when she’s doing this, laughing your ass off at me,”

“You sure you don’t want me in here to hold your hand?” He asked with his signature smirk.

“You’re a dick,” I pointed out “No, I don’t want you here, if there’s anyone’s hand I’m holding tonight its ‘Little Miss Sunshine’,” I gave him a wink for added effect.

“You creepy bastard,” He laughed at me “Alright, have fun, I’ll be back in a bit,”

~~~~

I couldn’t have been more relaxed while Hannah stitched me up and I was honestly so surprised.

She had applied numbing cream around the affected area, waited ten minutes for it to take and then started stitching me up. The whole time she was doing so, she was talking to me about the band and made sure to keep me talking so that I wasn’t thinking about what she was doing.

What a way to spend Halloween.

“My kid brother had really wanted to see you guys the other night,” She told me “I never managed to get tickets for him and I was working that night so we couldn’t even try to sneak in or anything,”

“Your brother’s a fan?” I asked, genuinely surprised.

“The biggest,” She chuckled “We both are,”

“Really?” I asked, even more surprised “I never would have guessed,”

“Why not?” She asked “I don’t exactly wear scrubs and look completely professional all of the time, you know,” She laughed, lifting her scrub top and the grey t-shirt she was wearing underneath to expose the Deathbat tattoo that was inked onto her ribs “See?”

“Nice ink!” I exclaimed, looking at it with wide eyes “That’s freaking awesome, I love it when we get to see that our fans are so damn dedicated to us that they would permanently wear our logo on their bodies for the rest of their lives,”

“We only get to do this once,” She pointed out “Living life to the fullest while you have the chance is something I was taught at a very young age,”

“It’s a good lesson to be taught,” I agreed “The kid brother got any work done yet?” I asked.

“No way,” She laughed “He’s only fifteen, but he already told me that he wants a tattoo to match mine and my best friend’s as soon as he’s old enough,”

“Your friend a fan, too?” I asked.

“Correct,” She smiled, finishing off my stitches “There you go, you’re all done,”

“Thank you,” I smiled up at her.

“It’s just my job, and it’s not like I can have my favourite drummer taking too much time off from work now, can I?”

“I guess not,” I laughed.

Just then, the door to the examination room opened and Brian walked through with a tight-lipped smile on his face and his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his ripped jeans.

“What’d they say?” I asked him.

“They’re on their way down here,” He sighed “Matt isn’t too happy about having to spend the night here but he wants you to rest up as much as you have to – especially because you’ve been told to – and they’re bringing Larry with them so that he can talk to a professional,”

“Excellent,” Hannah smiled, almost immediately diffusing any negativity that was building in the room at the news of everyone dragging themselves to the hospital just because I bumped my head “I’ll take you up to your room for the night, would you like a wheelchair or would you prefer to walk on your own?” She asked, smiling down at me.

“And miss out on being pushed around this place by a beautiful woman? No thanks, I’ll take the chair!”

She laughed and threw her head back slightly before walking away from me and shaking her head.

“I’ll be right back,” She chirped as she left the room.

“Dude,” Brian started, his tone warning and his expression even more so “Calm your jets, you don’t need to go getting involved with her,”

“I’m not doing anything,” I insisted, holding my hands up in defence “Definitely not getting involved with the really attractive nurse who just fixed my head, has promised me drugs and is going to be taking care of me for the night,”

~~~~

**_Hannah_ **

I’d taken Jimmy to his room and helped him get settled into his bed for the night, then I’d left him and Brian alone so that I could go off and hunt them down some food. By the time I got back, the rest of the band was there with Larry and I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous before in my whole life.

They all introduced themselves to me and thanked me for helping Jimmy out, and it’s definitely safe to say that they’re all huggers.

“Hannah,” Larry spoke, getting my attention “Could I speak to you in the hall for a moment, please?”

“Of course,” I smiled at him before I lead him out into the hallway “Brian told me earlier that you were going to want to speak with me,”

“Right,” He nodded “I just wanted to let you know that absolutely nothing can happen to Jimmy, or any of the other for that matter, we have a tour to finish and that means we have to be out of here as quickly as we can be,”

“I assure you that you will all be on your way tomorrow morning,” I told him “If everything keeps going the way that it already is going and he doesn’t do himself any more damage then you’ll all be back on the road in no time,”

“Is it only yourself we will be dealing with tonight?”

“Most likely,” I nodded “I’m down in the emergency room tonight but I’ll be coming up here every couple of hours throughout the night to check on Jimmy unless-“

I was cut off by my pager beeping loudly from the waistband of my scrub pants. I muttered an ‘excuse me’ before I checked it.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized “I have to call this in, can you just hold on one second?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” He smiled kindly and gave me a nod.

I jogged down the corridor and around the corner to the reception desk for the ward and picked up the free phone and called the number that had appeared on my pager.

“Hannah?” The voice of one of my co-workers, Josh, down in the emergency room asked.

“Correct,” I chuckled into the phone “Did you beep me?” I asked.

“Yeah,” He sighed “Doctor Wills is on a war-path, someone ordered a head x-ray on the man who came in with a bite on his head, and they didn’t sign it so he doesn’t know who did it… any idea?”

“The patient was in a bar fight,” I groaned, rubbing my free hand over my face “He was communicative when he was admitted and once on the ward Doctor Lang took over from me so I’m guessing she was the one who ordered the scan but I can’t be sure, I was already back in the emergency room,”

“Where’s the patient now?” Josh asked “Doctor Wills wants to see him,”

“They moved him,” I shrugged despite the fact that he couldn’t see me “I’m sure someone can track him down for Wills,”

“Great, page Wills when you find him, would you?” He asked “Thanks, you’re the best,” He chirped and ended the call before I could say anything.

“Rough night?” The receptionist, Cora, asked.

“It’s Halloween, of course it’s a tough night,” I laughed “Can you locate a patient for me?”

“Already on it sweetheart,” She smiled “Gregory Rodgers?” She asked, clearly remembering the patient from when he was brought through here earlier on.

“Yep,” I confirmed with a nod while she typed something into the computer.

“There he is,” She spoke as I rounded the desk so that I was in front of her “They had him transferred to ICU,”

“…From a bite?” I asked, a little confused.

“I don’t know what from,” She frowned, looking back at the screen “Toxicology is going to follow him up in the morning,”

“Okay,” I sighed, shaking my head “Would you page Doctor Wills and let him know where the patient is?”

A light behind her started flashing and a buzzer sounded around the area, and I noticed that it was a nurse – me – being called for from Jimmy Sullivan’s room.

“That’s one of mine,” I laughed “I’ll check in before I go back downstairs,”

“You get those boys warned,” She told me with a laugh “There’s not enough of you nurses up here tonight to deal with them messing around,”

I just waved over my shoulder and laughed as I continued up the corridor.

“What seems to be the matter?” I asked, walking back into the room, only to find the band messing around together on Jimmy’s bed while Larry sat in the corner of the room on the comfortable arm chair and tapped away at his iPad “Larry,” I said, getting his attention “Earlier, I was about to say that I’ll be the one checking in every couple of hours unless Jimmy needs something before I come back, then someone can press that button-“ I pointed to the one that had been pressed to get me back here “In which case one of the other nurses up here on the ward will come and sort you out,” I turned to the boys, clapped my hands twice and they all sat back down, like a group of school kids when the teacher walks into the class “Don’t fuck around with the button,” I ordered “And please, keep the noise down, you’re not the only ones up here,”

~~~~

I walked back into the emergency room, just in time to see paramedics bursting through the door with a little girl on a gurney. She was tied down by her wrists and her ankles and she was thrashing around like a madman, and her mother was following behind, holding her own arm and trailing blood along the floor. While other staff rushed to help with the little girl, I ran over to the mother.

“Ma’am, are you the little girl’s mother?” I asked.

“Yes, I am,” She answered quickly, nodding frantically, still walking so that I ha to walk quickly along beside her.

“Are you hurt?” I asked, reaching my hand out towards her arm.

“Yes,” She answered.

“Alright, would you like to come with me so that I can take a look at that wound and fix it up for you?” I asked.

“But my daughter-“

“Your daughter is in good hands, ma’am, I can assure you that my colleagues will take good care of her and I’ll take you right to her once we’re all done,”

“…Alright,” She nodded after a moment.

“Come with me,” I smiled, leading her into a free examination room to our right.

Once in the room, I sat the woman up on the bed and asked her to remove her cardigan and any tissue that she was holding to her wound, and she did so while I was turned away from her and slipping my hands into another pair of latex gloves.

“Alright let’s have a look at-“

My eyes widened and my jaw dropped when I saw the state of the inner side of her forearm. It was purple, yellow and blue, completely bruised, seeping blood and there were very deep teeth marks in the shape of a very small mouth right in the centre of the bruising and bleeding.

“She bit me,” The woman spoke, answering my un-asked question “In the ambulance, she lashed out and she bit me…”


	2. Chapter Two

**_Hannah_ **

It’s a quarter to nine and so much has happened in the last hour.

The little girl who had been brought in by her mother, the little girl who had bitten her mother in the ambulance… she had only gotten worse after she had been sedated and cuffed to the hospital bed. Her name is Rachel Miller and she’s only six years old. Her mother phoned an ambulance when she found her daughter on the floor of her own bedroom, unable to move the lower half of her body, crying that she couldn’t feel any part of her body, and once they were in the ambulance they discovered that she also had a very slow heart rate.

The little girl is in a coma while her mother cries by her bedside. Nobody has yet figured out what’s wrong with her… what virus she seemed to have contracted that did this to her, but they’re still running tests on her to find out.

According to Mrs Miller, Rachel had been ill from 8am this morning and had been unable to attend school today. By 1pm she had a fever of 102 but had chills, she couldn’t remember a thing that had happened that day, she vomited and complained of sore joints so Mrs Miller had given her enough painkillers to put her to sleep for a little while because she needed rest and after that she found her on the floor, unable to stand or move her legs at all.

I’d fixed up Mrs Miller’s wound that she received in the ambulance and given her a painkiller but it didn’t seem to be doing anything, she was in pain and her whole forearm was discoloured around the wound, but the wound seemed to be clotting enough to stop her from bleeding out.

I had enough time to take a break before going back up onto the ward to check on Jimmy.

I made my way into the break room and found it void of any other people, so I slowly closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it and let out a long, shaky sigh and closed my eyes. I was feeling the complete opposite of relief and I needed to keep myself together and a quick fifteen minute break was sure to do the trick.

I crossed the room and poured myself a cup of coffee and brought the cup to my lips and took a sip, pleasantly surprised to find that the coffee was fresh. I walked over to one of the little couches in the corner, grabbing my phone from my bag on my way over. I unlocked my phone and found a random-as-always text from Erin and one from Jamie telling me that we were out of his favourite soda and asking me to pick some up on my way home. I smiled, shook my head and hit the ‘Call’ button next to his name and held my phone to my ear and took another drink of coffee.

“Hey,” Jamie answered the phone after a few rings.

“Hey, Kiddo,” I smiled into the phone “How’s the horror movie marathon going?” I asked.

“Four movies in,” He told me proudly.

“How many times have you jumped and how many times did you hide between the couch cushions?”

“… I haven’t been keeping count,” He admitted hesitantly and I gasped loudly “No, no, no,” He whined.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I laughed “You know what happens when we fail to keep count, we have to watch the movies _all over again_!”

“No-o-o,” He whined while still laughing.

Ever since I introduced Jamie to the wonderful world of horror movies, we’ve been keeping score of how many times we jump and/or hide away, and we count it up for the whole month and whoever has the lowest number for each option wins and the loser has to cook them a dinner of their choice.

“Yes!” I laughed “What movie are you onto now, anyway?” I asked.

“Cabin In The Woods,” He answered.

“Boo,” I groaned “That movie isn’t even scary,”

“Not for you, you’ve seen it a thousand times,” He laughed.

“Exactly,” I chuckled “I watch it as a casual movie because it’s so not scary,”

“Whatever, I’m a kid, leave me alone,”

“So, you’re alright?” I asked, finally turning into concerned older sister.

“I’m fine,” He told me confidently “And if I’m not fine, I’ll call Erin – or the hospital if it’s serious and I need you to come home right away,”

“Good boy,” I cooed patronizingly “Alright, go back to your boring movie,”

“Go back to work,”

“I’m going,”

“Me too,”

“I love you,”

I smiled gently and closed my eyes.

“… I love you too, Kiddo,”

“Bye,”

“Bye,”

I ended the call and placed my phone down on the little table in front of me and took a long drink of my coffee. The peaceful silence in the break room was horribly interrupted by my pager beeping loudly. I tugged it off of my waistband and looked at it, immediately jumping into action when I saw the code for Sudden Cardiopulmonary Arrest and the number of Rachel Miller’s hospital room on the screen.

The one thing they told me when I was being trained in nursing about cardiac arrest that applies to every single patient; we have six minutes to save their life and the longer we take to get to them the less time we have to actually save them.

That’s what was running through my head as I sprinted down corridors and climbed staircases two steps at a time. The longer I took to get to this little girl, the less time I would have to save her.

~~~~

**_Erin_ **

Friday night is date night, and this week’s date night just so happens to have fallen on Halloween.

Kevin and I were curled up on the sofa together with our dog, Jackson, lying next to us being protective as ever. We had already eaten takeout Chinese food and watched Halloween and Friday The 13th and Kevin had just put on The Conjuring. Things were just starting to get interesting when Jackson stood up from where he had been lying and padded across the living room, into the kitchen and over to the back patio doors and started to growl. When he growled, Kevin and I looked over our shoulders at him and noticed that he was looking somewhat uncomfortable.

“I think he needs to go outside,” Kevin said with a yawn.

“I got it,” I sighed, pushing myself off of the sofa before walking over to the dog and opening the back door for him, but he didn’t move, he just stared out into the yard “Go on Jack, go do what you gotta do,” I spoke to the dog.

He didn’t move, so with a sigh I closed the door back over and walked across the kitchen to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water and leaned against the counter while taking a drink and watched the dog. I always get a little on edge when he does something like this because of the whole ‘always trust your dog’ thing, so I decided just to watch him for a few minutes.

Suddenly, he started barking loudly, making me jump and rush over to him to see what he was barking at. It was dark out so I couldn’t see exactly, but there seemed to be a person standing in our back yard. I reached over and turned on the porch light and the whole yard lit up and I could see clearly that there definitely was someone standing in our back yard, our neighbour, Frank Williams. He wasn’t doing anything; he wasn’t moving… he was just standing there staring at the house with his head cocked to the side.

Slowly, I slid the door open and stepped outside.

“Frank?!” I called out “Frank, are you alright?”

His body twitched and jerked around for a moment before he dropped his head back, looked up at the sky and let out the most horrifying, almost animalistic scream I have ever heard and charged at the house at an inhumane speed and I was frozen in place. When he was about halfway to the house I felt myself being pulled backwards by the hem of my t-shirt and shoved away from the door.

“Get to the basement!” Kevin yelled at me. I didn’t question what he was telling me, I just grabbed Jackson by his collar and pulled him with me into the hall, I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see Frank tackle Kevin onto the floor. I opened the basement door under the stairs and clambered down the stairs and huddled myself up in the furthest corner of the basement, somewhat hiding myself in the shadows in case Frank came down here looking for me if he'd hurt Kevin. Jackson was growling and standing at full alert, ready to charge at any threat that might come down into the basement for us, but I was trying to keep him quiet while I listened to the commotion coming from the kitchen above us.

After a few minutes everything fell silent, and I heard slightly staggered footsteps on the floor right outside the basement door, then the door opened and the basement lit up slightly from the light in the hallway before the whole room lit up when the light was flicked on.

“Erin?” Kevin asked “E, are you down here?”

“I’m here,” I announced with a sigh of relief, finally coming out from the shadows and standing at the bottom of the stairs. I watched as Kevin locked the basement door behind him and stumbled down the stairs “What happened?” I asked.

“The bastard bit me,” He winced, tugging down the neckline of his t-shirt to show me his shoulder where there was a nasty bite “I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him, but I think he might be sick,”

“Should we phone an ambulance?” I asked, leaning in a bit closer to get a better look at Kevin’s wound.

“Do you have your cell phone on you?” He asked.

“No,” I sighed “It’s in the living room,”

“Well I knocked him unconscious,” He started “He’s still in the kitchen, I’ll go back up and-“

“No,” I cut him off “I’ll go up there, I’ll get my phone and the first aid kit so that we can clean you up while we’re down here and I’ll be back in a minute, alright?”

“Alright,” He sighed “But be careful, okay? He’s dangerous,”

“I’ll be fine,” I promised, walking around him and starting up the stairs “I’ll be right back,”

I climbed the stairs and let myself back out of the basement and into the hallway. I stood perfectly still and held my breath for a moment and listened to the silence that filled the house. I tried to look into the kitchen, but when I saw Frank’s feet around the wall from where he was still lying on the floor, I hurried in the opposite direction down the hall and into the living room through the other archway by the front door and hurriedly grabbed my cell phone. I needed the first aid kit, but there was no way that I was going into the kitchen for the one that we keep in there, so I was going to have to go for the one in the bathroom up the stairs.

I rushed up the stairs as quickly and quietly as I could and darted down the hallway to the bathroom where I’d made sure to stash a first aid kit. I opened the mirrored medicine cabinet and moved aside all of the pill bottles and tubes of creams that I’d placed in front of it and grabbed it before closing the cabinet again.

“Found you,” I smirked at the little green box in my hand.

I turned to leave the room and froze when I heard some sort of groan from the kitchen. Shit. Was Frank awake again?

I stayed still and listened as closely as I could, trying to work out what he was doing and it sounded like he was just sort of… stumbling around the kitchen. If he was still in the kitchen then I could most likely make it back into the basement without him spotting me and potentially killing me before I could get to safety and call the cops.

I left the bathroom and walked back across the landing, silently praising myself for wearing socks that were luckily silencing my steps that I took. Once I reached the top of the stairs, I gripped the first aid kit tighter in my hand and made sure that my phone was securely in my pocket before I made my decent. Halfway down the stairs I leaned over the railing a little so that I could look down the hallway and make sure that it was clear for me to make a quick dash to the basement door again, and luckily for me Frank hadn’t yet made his way out into the hall and it sounded to me like he was still in the kitchen but I couldn’t see him.

“You can do this,” I whispered to myself “Your life is not in danger, your neighbour did not bite your fiancé, you’re going to be fine…”

I took one last deep breath and hurried down the last few stairs and slid around the railing and started sprinting down the hall, but again, I froze, when Frank stumbled into the doorway between the kitchen and the hallway. Great. I’m stuck at one end of the hallway, Frank is standing at the other and the door to the basement is halfway between the two of us.

Something didn’t look right about him… he really did look sick.

Slowly, I reached to my left, to the coatrack and grabbed an umbrella from the basket next to it and prepared myself to use it as a weapon if I needed to. Again, just like when he was out in the backyard, Frank threw his head backwards and let out a horrifying scream and I took that as my opportunity to run, but the second after I started running down the hallway, he did too. I reached the door before he did and threw it open so that it hit him and threw him off balance for a second so that I could get through it, but the second I was through the door, I felt Frank grab the back of my t-shirt and pull me backward.

I turned around with the umbrella in both hands and used it to block him by pushing it against his neck, and tried to push him away from me, but he was just snapping at me like he was trying to bite me.

“Kevin!” I yelled out “Kevin, help me!”

Kevin came charging up the basement stairs as fast as he could and kicked Frank right in the stomach with such force that he was sent flying backwards across the hall and into the wall opposite the basement door. He was like a rag doll and it felt like everything had gone into slow motion as he smacked against the wall, hit the back of his head and… exploded everywhere.

Before I had the chance to process what had just happened, Kevin pulled me back down the basement stairs and over to our old sofa that had been set up in a little seating area on the left hand side of the basement.

“What the fuck just happened?” I asked, completely panicked and freaked out “His… h-his fucking head just exploded all over our wall!”

“I don’t know what happened, E…” He muttered, leaning down the back of the old TV that he had set up down here “But this is killing me, there’d better be painkillers in that box,” He chuckled, obviously trying to keep things light as he came back up from behind the TV.

“Here,” I handed him the first aid kit “Make a start on cleaning yourself up while I call 911,”

“I slipped my cell phone out of my pocket and unlocked it. I saw that Hannah had replied to my text and Jamie had even dropped me one wishing me a happy Halloween, but I ignored the texts and dialled ‘911’ before bringing the phone up to my ear.

I was met by an annoying beeping through the phone telling me that all of the lines were busy.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I groaned, hitting the ‘call’ button again but the phone just continued to beep loudly.

“Give me a hand with this first, and then try again,” Kevin grunted.

He had completely removed his blood stained shirt so that I could get to the wound easier, and I felt sick to my stomach at the sight of it. All around the bite mark was a horrible colour that was totally not normal and the blood was already clotting and just dripping out every second tooth mark in tiny little droplets.

“This doesn’t look right,” I sighed as I began cleaning it “Why the fuck did he bite you?”

“Beats me,”

~~~~

I got Kevin all cleaned up and tried calling 911 for another thirty minutes but there was no way that I was going to be getting through to anyone, but now I didn’t just need the cops, I needed an ambulance for Kevin because something was really, really wrong with him.

“Screw it,” I muttered, dialling the number for the emergency room.

“Travis County Hospital; Emergency Room, how can I help you?”

I immediately recognized the voice as Hannah. She sounded stressed and out of breath.

“Hannah?” I asked.

“Erin?” She asked back with a chuckle, but then she fell silent for a moment “Why are you calling…?” She asked hesitantly, almost like she didn’t want to know.

“I can’t get through to the emergency services, but I really need the cops and an ambulance,”  I told her.

“Why?” She asked “What happened?”

“Frank, our neighbour, he was sick-“ my breath hitched involuntarily in my throat “He came into the house and he – he bit Kevin and then he tried to attack me, but Kevin kicked him off of me and he hit the wall and his freaking head exploded all over the hallway and we’ve locked ourselves in the basement but Kevin isn’t holding up so well,”

“Shit,” She cursed under her breath “Can you list all of his symptoms?” She asked.

“Symptoms?” I asked, confused “Symptoms for what?”

“We don’t know yet,” She told me honestly “We have doctors working on it, but it’s nothing we’ve ever seen before, but we have a list of symptoms, so if you tell me what’s wrong with Kevin I’ll be able to tell you what you have to do,”

“Well he was bitten on the shoulder and he says that he’s in a lot of pain, his wound is a really disgusting colour and it’s already starting to clot and he’s starting to get warm, he’s sweating but it’s absolutely freezing down here,”

“Get out,” She said without missing a beat.

“What?” I asked with a nervous laugh.

“Get out of the basement and get away from Kevin, leave him down there and lock the door behind you,”

“If you think I’m going to leave him when he needs me then you’re absolutely crazy,” I told her.

“I know that you don’t want to leave him,” She sighed “But if you want to live then you have to stay away from him and get the hell out of there!”

“If this is some sort of horrible prank, it isn’t funny,” I informed her.

“It’s not a prank,” She insisted “Put me on speakerphone so that I can speak to you both,”

I pulled the phone away from my ear and put it on loudspeaker.

“Alright, you’re on,” I told her.

“I have to make this quick,” She started “But a few hours ago we had a little girl come into the emergency room, the paramedics were wheeling her through and she was strapped down to the gurney because she wouldn’t stop thrashing around, and her mother was following behind her, but she was bleeding…” She took a breath “I managed to pull the mother away for a few minutes so that I could fix her up, and it turns out that her daughter had bitten her arm in the ambulance when she started lashing out all of a sudden,”

“Where are you going with this?” Kevin asked.

“The little girl was sick, she was sick this morning and couldn’t go to school, and every few hours she got worse and eventually she lost the use of her legs and that’s when her mother called for an ambulance,” She said “After she was admitted to the ward she slipped into a coma, and then she went into cardiac arrest and… there was nothing we could do for her – we lost her,”

“Shit,” I sighed, knowing that Hannah isn’t so good with dealing with death at work.

“It didn’t end there,” She added “The mother is starting to show symptoms of whatever it was that her daughter had…”

~~~~

**_Hannah_ **

“So you’re saying that Frank had whatever that little girl had, and because he bit me I’m going to get it, too?” Kevin asked me through the phone.

“I don’t know for sure,” I sighed, rubbing my free hand over my face “But the whole emergency room is filling up with sick people who all seem to be at different stages of this virus and they’ve all either contracted it or they were bitten by someone that they know,”

“Should I bring Kevin in?” Erin asked.

“No,” I told her “I told you what to do already, bringing him in here isn’t going to make any difference,”

“What did you tell her to do?” Kevin asked.

“She needs to get out of the basement and lock you in it,” I answered.

“Why?” He asked.

“Because if you have this virus then the chances are that you’re going to bite Erin and give it to her when you start to lose it… if she locks you in the basement then she saves herself and if you don’t have the virus we can keep you in there until someone who knows what they’re doing can come down and get you,”

There was a moment of silence.

“Erin, get out of here,” Kevin said sadly.

“No!” She yelled at him “There is no way I’m leaving you down here,”

“I have to make sure that you’re going to be okay,” He sighed “If I don’t have the virus then I’ll see you real soon, but if I do you can’t be around me,”

I was listening to them when my pager started going off, but it wasn’t something I had seen before, it was an emergency down in the morgue…

“You guys, I have to go,” I said quickly into the phone “Erin, get the fuck out of there, I’ll call you back soon,”

I hung up the phone and dialled the number for the morgue and waited a moment while it rang, waiting for someone down there to pick up the phone.

“Hello?” Someone asked hurriedly, panic in their voice, and I could hear loud screaming in the background.

“You paged me?” I asked “What the hell is going on down there?”

“They’re coming back,” He whispered, his voice shaking violently “That little girl, the first to die in here from that virus, she came back!”

Everything stopped, my eyes widened and my jaw dropped as I heard whoever I was talking to on the phone scream bloody murder and that’s when everything started moving again but only in slow motion. My eyes landed on a man who was lying on the floor, surrounded by other patients and other hospital staff who seemed to be trying to get his heart going again, but screaming suddenly filled the emergency room as he sat up and sunk his teeth into his daughter’s neck and tore a huge chunk of flesh out of her.

This wasn’t happening. No fucking way was the real fucking zombie apocalypse happening. No.

I took off running from the reception and down the hall and back into the break room, I grabbed my bag and my cell phone and left again, running through the hospital and down to the elevators that would take me down to the staff parking garage.

“Hannah!” Someone yelled from down the corridor. I looked up and saw the whole of Avenged Sevenfold running towards me and Larry was leading them down the corridor.

“You guys have to get out of here!” I almost screamed at them “Please, everyone’s going ape shit,”

“We know,” Larry told me “I can’t get these guys out of here,” He told me.

“What do you mean?”

“I have to get out of here and try to get home to my family, but these guys need to get as far away from here as possible, so they’re your responsibility now,”

“You’re fucking kidding!” Brian yelled at him “There’s no way I’m trusting _her_ to keep me safe,”

“Then keep yourself safe,” I spat at him “I don’t fucking want you as my responsibility, I have a brother I have to get home to!”

“Hannah,” Larry whispered, dragging me away from the band so that they couldn’t hear him “Take this,” He insisted, pulling a huge wad of cash from his pocket and stuffed it into my hands “Get them out of here, use this for whatever you need; gas, clothes, food, shelter, whatever, and if the day comes and you get them back to me then I’ll give you double that and then some,”

I knew that there was no point arguing with the man, and the longer I stayed here talking this over the longer I was leaving Jamie home alone and Erin was still going to be with Kevin.

“Alright,”

~~~~

**_Jamie_ **

I was finished with my movies and about to get ready for bed, but when I turned off the DVD player the TV came on and there was something on the news about an emergency broadcast. I sat myself back down on the sofa and watched whatever it was.

I was watching it and with every second I was starting to panic more and more. This had to be some horrible Halloween prank that they were playing on us, right?

I jumped when my cell phone started to ring, but I answered it quickly without checking the caller I.D

“Hello?” I answered the phone.

“Jamie!” Hannah almost yelled, breathless, into the phone “Jamie, pack a bag and stay inside the house, don’t let anyone in until I come home, alright?”

“It’s not a prank, is it?” I asked her.

“No…” She sighed “It’s really happening, so I need you to-ah!”

She screamed and I heard something hitting metal in the background.

“What do I do?” She asked.

“Just run him over,” Someone answered her in the background, followed by the sound of Hannah’s van moving again.

“Jamie, I’ll be home in ten minutes and I’m bringing Avenged Sevenfold with me. Call Erin and tell her that we’re coming for her,” Before I could say anything else she hung up the phone and I quickly called Erin.

“Jamie?” She answered the phone, her voice shaking and I heard her sniffing “Jamie, are you there?”

“I’m here,” I confirmed “E, Hannah’s on her way home from the hospital now and we’re going to come and get you, alright?”

“Alright,” She cried.

“Why are you crying?” I asked.

“One of them got Kevin,” She sobbed “Hannah told me to lock him in the basement and I did, but I can hear him losing it down there,”

“Pack your stuff, E.”  I told her softly “We’ll be there soon,” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another somewhat long chapter. This isn't the end of the intro to the apocalypse, the next chapter will contain the end and a bit of a time skip.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-write of the original which has now been deleted. 
> 
> This story is also posted on http://www.avengedsevenfoldfanfiction.com/
> 
> Rated Explicit for future smut and constant gore.


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